Overseas-trained doctors may be able to start working in Australia more quickly under changes being considered by the peak body for general practitioners aimed at addressing a ballooning doctor shortage.
Hundreds of foreign-trained doctors living in Australia were unable to work during the pandemic due to a complex and rigorous system of approving international medical graduates to work locally.
It prompted the federal government to in September announce a rapid review of regulatory settings for health professionals that will be independently led by the former New South Wales health secretary Robyn Kruk.
Ahead of Kruk’s final report, expected to be delivered to the government imminently, the president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), Dr Nicole Higgins, said the college would simplify assessments that compared the skills of overseas doctors to local ones, often requiring doctors to undergo expensive additional training.
She said measures the RACGP was considering included reducing training and skills comparability scores for international medical graduates; widening the type of training considered applicable; removing the requirement for a reflective essay as part of the assessment to commence practise in Australia; and making feedback requirements less onerous once doctors begin work in Australia.
Higgins, who is a GP in north Queensland, said she was very aware of the workforce shortage and the need for change. “My town has been heavily dependent on the skill and goodwill of overseas-trained doctors.”
Kruk’s interim report found equivalence assessments should be transitioned to the Australian Medical Council for doctors coming from countries with similar training standards to Australia. The assessments determine if a specialist overseas doctor is competent and safe to practise in Australia.
Higgins said the college had rejected this recommendation, saying “what we can’t do is trade off quality and safety, for access and workforce. We need to always make sure that we put safety first and foremost, whilst we streamline all the other processes to make things easier.”
Higgins said it was important for patient and doctor safety that specialty colleges continue to make that assessment, as “we often have the most vulnerable doctors working with the most vulnerable patients in communities who are most at need”.
Increasing demand for GP services has left Australia short at least 860 general practitioners, a number which is projected to ballon to 10,600 in less than 10 years.
But skilled GPs from overseas are being discouraged from working in Australia as result of a recruitment process which can take up to 21 months and cost in excess of $25,000 even for cohorts from fast-tracked countries.
Nicole O’Reilly, the chair of National Rural Health Alliance, welcomed the RACGP’s commitment to review the system but stressed the need to improve access to services in rural and remote areas while ensuring public safety standards were maintained.
“The processes related to overseas-trained health professionals should be designed to filter for quality and safety rather than test perseverance and persistence,” O’Reilly said.
“We would hope that rural and remote Australia is afforded the opportunity to benefit from it as well,” she said.
